PRO: Ohio gets a $5.05 billion lump sum to speed up school construction projects and avoids having to borrow money for those projects in the future, freeing up cash to help pay for a property-tax cut for senior and disabled homeowners.

CON: Ohio gives up the annual payments from tobacco companies to be made in perpetuity under a 1998 settlement, and the state stood to collect much more than $5.5 billion over time. (Although Ohio has pledged 45 years of tobacco receipts, officials anticipate giving up the annual payments for only about 24 years based on current projections.)

PRO: Ohio transfers to the bondholders the risk of the tobacco companies going bankrupt or the annual payments being reduced by declining smoking rates, litigation or other factors.

CON: Ohio is paying higher interest rates than it would on other bonds to transfer that risk.

PRO: Using proceeds from the tobacco bond sale for school construction instead of issuing general obligation bonds will help keep the state under its borrowing limit, giving it flexibility in a challenging economic environment.

CON: The state is paying more to sell the tobacco bonds than it would to sell higher-rated bonds backed by state tax revenues, essentially meaning the projects have been refinanced at a higher cost.

PRO: Officials say they kept expenses below the cost per bond sold of similar tobacco bond sales in other states.

CON: About $25 million was paid to underwriters, lawyers and others to handle the sale, and between $350 million and $400 million is being set aside as required to pay bondholders if there's a problem and is used to make the last payment on the bonds if there's not.

PRO: Ohio took advantage of an improving bond market in the weeks before the sale to complete the sale in a single deal, avoiding potential pitfalls in the market later that could have made other sales more problematic and expensive.

CON: The state had to offer more generous interest rates and other terms to investors to generate sufficient interest than it may have had it broken the sale into two or more chunks.

PRO: Getting the lump sum allows the Strickland administration to achieve key budget priorities now -- including the tax cut, which benefits an estimated one out of four Ohio homeowners.

CON: The funding won't pay the entire cost of the tax cut over time, meaning other public money will have to be used. Critics say the tobacco funds should have been spent on education or other items to help future generations.